Legal Firms
Client due diligence and risk management for law firms
Law firms undertaking work in scope of anti-money-laundering rules — conveyancing, corporate transactions, trust and company work, and the handling of client money — carry client-due-diligence, source-of-funds and conflicts obligations alongside professional-conduct duties. OnyxOne gives risk and compliance teams and fee-earners one operating system to run client and matter diligence, screening, conflicts checks and record-keeping, so the firm stays compliant without slowing client onboarding.
How OnyxOne fits your operation
Your compliance, risk, audit and legal teams work in OnyxOne, which centralises risk, controls, policy, obligations, cases and evidence, and connects to the systems, screening and data providers your deployment requires.
The pressures this sector carries
The compliance and regulatory realities that shape how firms in this sector operate. Described generically — your obligations depend on your jurisdiction, licence and activities.
How professional obligations map to the controls a practice operates, and how those controls mitigate the risks it carries. Labels are illustrative.
In-scope legal work carries AML duties
Firms undertaking certain transactional and advisory work are typically expected to run client due diligence, screening and source-of-funds checks, and to keep records. The platform supports this programme shape; whether and how the rules apply depends on your jurisdiction and the work you do.
Source of funds in transactional work
Property, corporate and other transactional matters commonly require establishing and evidencing the source of funds, particularly where client money is handled.
Conflicts and professional conduct
Alongside financial-crime duties, firms carry professional-conduct obligations, including conflict-of-interest checks that must be run and evidenced before accepting instructions.
Confidentiality and privilege
Client confidentiality and, where applicable, legal professional privilege constrain how information is handled. Compliance tooling must respect access restrictions and data-protection duties.
What makes this hard today
The operational realities compliance and risk teams in this sector wrestle with.
Onboarding friction for fee-earners
Client and matter inception checks are often seen as a brake on billable work, so they get rushed, skipped or done inconsistently across the firm.
Diligence inconsistent across the firm
Different practice groups and offices apply client due diligence differently, leaving gaps that supervisors and insurers care about.
Source-of-funds done by hand
Establishing and evidencing source of funds on transactional matters is manual, document-heavy and hard to standardise.
Conflicts checks disconnected from diligence
Conflicts and AML checks run in separate systems or not at all, so matter inception lacks a single, evidenced gate.
Record-keeping under insurer and regulator scrutiny
Producing the client and matter file for a supervisor or professional-indemnity insurer is slow when evidence is scattered.
How OnyxOne serves the sector
A single client and matter inception gate
Client and matter onboarding runs through one workflow that captures identity, ownership and, where relevant, source of funds — with screening and risk rating built in so inception is one evidenced step.
Consistent diligence firm-wide
The same defined workflow applies across practice groups and offices, so client due diligence is applied consistently and gaps are closed.
Source-of-funds workflows
Transactional matters follow a defined workflow that captures and evidences source of funds, with higher-risk matters routed to enhanced diligence and approvals recorded.
Screening at inception and beyond
Clients and connected parties are screened against sanctions, PEP and adverse-media sources at inception and on an ongoing basis, with matches captured against the matter.
A retrievable client and matter record
Every check, decision and document is preserved in an immutable, retrievable trail, so the file exists for a supervisor or insurer on request.
The end-to-end workflow
A defined, sector-specific process with clear ownership at every stage.
Every result, decision and override is captured against the record it belongs to.
Open the client & matter
Client and matter details are captured and screened against sanctions, PEP and adverse-media sources at inception.
Run diligence & conflicts
Identity, ownership and conflicts are established, with the matter risk-rated against your methodology.
Evidence source of funds
Transactional matters capture and evidence source of funds, with higher-risk matters routed to enhanced due diligence.
Monitor across the retainer
Ongoing screening surfaces sanctions and status changes across the life of the client relationship.
Escalate & report
Concerns and alerts route into structured cases, with suspicious-activity content prepared where required.
Keep the file
Every check, decision and document is preserved in an immutable, retrievable trail ready for supervisor or insurer review.
How teams in this sector use OnyxOne
Standardising client inception
Give every practice group one evidenced inception gate so diligence is consistent across the firm.
Source-of-funds on property and corporate matters
Capture and evidence source of funds in a defined workflow instead of ad-hoc document collection.
Reducing onboarding friction
Make inception a single, fast step for fee-earners so compliance and billable work stop competing.
Producing the file for insurers and supervisors
Retrieve a defensible client and matter record on request instead of assembling it from folders.
Modules that matter most here
The parts of the OnyxOne platform this sector leans on most. Turn on what you need and add more as your programme scales.
Works with your existing systems
Described as capabilities — OnyxOne connects to the systems your deployment requires, configured per implementation.
- Ingests client and matter data from your existing practice-management systems
- Connects to the sanctions, PEP and adverse-media providers contracted for your deployment
- Integrates with your existing identity-verification and corporate-registry data services
- Connects to your existing document and matter stores so diligence records live with the file
- Routes inception checks, alerts and approvals through your existing email and messaging tools
Security & reporting
Security & data handling
- Client, matter and case data are encrypted in transit and at rest.
- Role-based access respects confidentiality and information-barrier requirements between matters and teams.
- Every check, decision and document is written to an append-only audit trail.
- Sensitive and suspicion-related data are restricted to authorised roles under need-to-know.
- Data residency and retention are configurable to your jurisdiction and record-keeping obligations.
Reports & returns
- Suspicious-activity / suspicious-transaction report content (SAR/STR)
- Client and matter screening-coverage reports
- Matter risk-rating distribution reports
- Source-of-funds and diligence evidence packs
- Management information for the MLRO, COLP/COFA-equivalent roles and management
What your team gains
Consistent diligence across the firm
One inception workflow closes the gaps that vary by practice group and office.
Less friction at onboarding
A single evidenced step means compliance stops competing with billable work.
Source of funds evidenced
A defined workflow makes source-of-funds assessment repeatable and defensible.
The file on request
An immutable, retrievable record answers supervisor and insurer requests quickly.
Questions, answered
Is OnyxOne a law firm or a regulated legal provider?
No. OnyxOne is a technology vendor providing compliance and risk software. It is not a law firm or a regulated legal provider, and is not an obliged entity. Responsibility for obligations remains with your firm, and nothing here is legal advice.
Does it handle conflicts as well as AML checks?
Client and matter inception can bring identity, conflicts and financial-crime checks into one evidenced workflow, so matter opening has a single gate rather than disconnected checks. Conflict rules themselves are configured to your firm's requirements.
Can it evidence source of funds on transactions?
Yes. Transactional matters can follow a defined workflow that captures and evidences source of funds, with higher-risk matters routed to enhanced due diligence and approvals recorded.
How does it respect confidentiality between matters?
Role-based access and information-barrier controls restrict who can see which clients and matters, so confidentiality and information-barrier requirements are respected.
Do you provide the screening data?
Screening and data providers are contracted and configured per deployment rather than fixed to a single named partner; OnyxOne applies your chosen sources through configurable match logic.
See OnyxOne for Legal Firms
Book a walkthrough and we'll show how the platform fits your sector's obligations, workflows and systems — then scope an implementation.